Exactly. That's why I said Rielly's skating style reminded him of Niedermayer's skating style. Said nothing about him being as good as Niedermayer. (Which would be impossible since I already said I voted for Hamilton in this thread...unless I think Hamilton is better than Niedermayer which I DON'T!)

ok, we'll chalk that up as me misinterpreting what you were saying, because some people do get carried away with that kind of stuff

I already clarified that comment, what I meant was that it's statistically less likely for a 6 foot defenseman to make it as a star in the NHL and that Rielly is in fact a 6 foot defenseman.

Obviously that doesn't necessitate that he himself is less likely to be a star, just that statistically people of similar sizes have not fared all that well in the NHL. I happen to worry that he is part of that population that doesn't usually make it and accounts for only 26% of the population in the NHL.

It's also statistically less likely for people born with red hair to become NHL stars. It holds about as much merit as your heighth argument.

It's funny how many things people just blindly believe without any knowledge or facts or context to support why.

Look at the average size of an NHL defenseman, much taller than your average person. Look at Zdeno Chara, Tyler Myers, Chris Pronger, etc. Disproportionate amount of really good, really tall NHL defenseman when compared with how many people are that height from the general population. What kind of evidence would you like that you're not just gonna stick your head in the sand and ignore? You seem to want somebody to prove a correlation (explain how this can be done for your standards and I'm sure somebody can do it), sometimes you have to just logically realize it's there. Reach is a huge advantage for an NHL defenseman to have.

Look at the average size of an NHL defenseman, much taller than your average person. Look at Zdeno Chara, Tyler Myers, Chris Pronger, etc. Disproportionate amount of really good, really tall NHL defenseman when compared with how many people are that height from the general population. What kind of evidence would you like that you're not just gonna stick your head in the sand and ignore? You seem to want somebody to prove a correlation (explain how this can be done for your standards and I'm sure somebody can do it), sometimes you have to just logically realize it's there. Reach is a huge advantage for an NHL defenseman to have.

Tall players (and we're talking freak tall, not the difference between 6'1 and the average player) have a reach advantage, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have a hockey advantage, since there are also advantages to a shorter height.

If you can't put it together that height is an advantage in the NHL then you can't really be argued with. It's not rocket science but it is confusing you.

Height has so little bearing on his level of success it borders on stupid. If he was a shrimp, perhaps. He is not. He is at or above average in virtually every meaningful attribute. It's not rocket science but it is confusing you.

For your consumption, over the past 30 years, only 5 times has the Norris winner been taller than Reilly is at 18. In addition, only 9 times has that person weighed more than Reilly does at 18. I'd be willing to bet his weight will go up from where he is at 18. Athletic weight means far more than height. There's a reason sports break classes by weight and not height. Add to this the fact he was a top finisher in several strength classes amongst his peers at combine. Then add being considered such a high pick despite basically not playing for the season. It really is beyond ridiculous how little of a role height will play in his success.

And that's all I was trying to say as well . All else being equal, being taller increases your odds of being an NHL defenseman.

Being freakishly tall also hinders your ability is some instances as well. How many NHL D are 6'5" and above? Granted there are much less in the total population, but that does not negate the numerous instances in which height was a hinderance (stability, skating, agility) rather than a benefit.

Speed is an advantage too. So is hockey sense. So is strength. There are countless other advantages one can have. I don't see why height holds such a higher merit over these other attributes.

It doesn't hold precedent over skating, vision and hands ;however, it is an important tiebreaker when those skills are similar. If you are 6-5 and you can skate as well as a guy that is under 6 feet tall, you have the advantage (This is not a Hamilton-Reilly comparison). It's just that people are refusing to accept that height is advantage. Some posters go as far as to say it hinders you. Merely trying to shoot down that nonsense.

It doesn't hold precedent over skating, vision and hands ;however, it is an important tiebreaker when those skills are similar. If you are 6-5 and you can skate as well as a guy that is under 6 feet tall, you have the advantage (This is not a Hamilton-Reilly comparison). It's just that people are refusing to accept that height is advantage. Some posters go as far as to say it hinders you. Merely trying to shoot down that nonsense.

Significant height over another is one of many advantages you can have, provided it is utilized correctly. However, it can also bring disadvantages with it, depending on the individual.

It doesn't hold precedent over skating, vision and hands ;however, it is an important tiebreaker when those skills are similar. If you are 6-5 and you can skate as well as a guy that is under 6 feet tall, you have the advantage (This is not a Hamilton-Reilly comparison). It's just that people are refusing to accept that height is advantage. Some posters go as far as to say it hinders you. Merely trying to shoot down that nonsense.

Makes sense. But How many of those 6-5 giants are offensive defenceman? Took a look, Niedermayer and Lindstrom were 6-1, they'd count as offensive dmen right?

Significant height over another is one of many advantages you can have, provided it is utilized correctly. However, it can also bring disadvantages with it, depending on the individual.

You can believe what you want to believe but the fact that 74% of defensemen are over 6 feet tall tells you that the advantages far outweigh the negatives. If they didn't, you would see the majority of defensemen under 6 feet tall, since that is what the majority of the population is. Is this a hard concept to understand? Am I getting trolled? I don't even know anymore.

It doesn't hold precedent over skating, vision and hands ;however, it is an important tiebreaker when those skills are similar. If you are 6-5 and you can skate as well as a guy that is under 6 feet tall, you have the advantage (This is not a Hamilton-Reilly comparison). It's just that people are refusing to accept that height is advantage. Some posters go as far as to say it hinders you. Merely trying to shoot down that nonsense.

People are refusing to accept it when you are within the bulk of the bell curve.

You can believe what you want to believe but the fact that 74% of defensemen are over 6 feet tall tells you that the advantages far outweigh the negatives. If they didn't, you would see the majority of defensemen under 6 feet tall, since that is what the majority of the population is. Is this a hard concept to understand? Am I getting trolled? I don't even know anymore.

Yet over the past 30 years, 83% of the players deemed the best d-man in the NHL have been 6'1" or less.

You can believe what you want to believe but the fact that 74% of defensemen are over 6 feet tall tells you that the advantages far outweigh the negatives. If they didn't, you would see the majority of defensemen under 6 feet tall, since that is what the majority of the population is. Is this a hard concept to understand? Am I getting trolled? I don't even know anymore.

Your percentages are faulty, and they don't tell you that at all anyway. Correlation does not mean causation, especially for a sample like this.

the fact that 74% of defensemen are over 6 feet tall tells you that the advantages far outweigh the negatives. If they didn't, you would see the majority of defensemen under 6 feet tall, since that is what the majority of the population is.

78% of all NBA players are African American. Does this tell me that the advantages of skin colour far outweigh the negatives?

It's also statistically less likely for people born with red hair to become NHL stars. It holds about as much merit as your heighth argument.

The fact that you would even post such a stupid comment shows me you aren't capable of understanding anything.

But just for closure, what percent of Canadian males (as a proxy for overall NHLers) are red-headed? What percent of Canadian NHLers have red hair? I would imagine it's a very similar percentage because it is totally irrelvant.

Now, what percent of the Canadian male population is smaller than 6'1? What percent of Canadian defenseman are smaller than 6'1? I just told you that 26% are. Are you meaning to tell me that only 26% of the male population in Canada is under 6'0? Because if you are you're exceptionally wrong.

And because I can see from your previous comment that you're going to need this: please don't get hung up on the Canadian part of the post it's only going to confuse you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Whydidijoin

Tall players (and we're talking freak tall, not the difference between 6'1 and the average player) have a reach advantage, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have a hockey advantage, since there are also advantages to a shorter height.

So being 6,8 (ie. freakishly tall) gives you a reach advantage over a guy who is 6'0, but being 6'3 doesn't give you a reach advantage over a guy who's 6'0? Yeah that makes sense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by eyeball11

Height has so little bearing on his level of success it borders on stupid. If he was a shrimp, perhaps. He is not. He is at or above average in virtually every meaningful attribute. It's not rocket science but it is confusing you.

How's that again? Did you read the numbers I posted? Are you saying it's a coincidence? What are you saying?

Quote:

For your consumption, over the past 30 years, only 5 times has the Norris winner been taller than Reilly is at 18. In addition, only 9 times has that person weighed more than Reilly does at 18. I'd be willing to bet his weight will go up from where he is at 18. Athletic weight means far more than height. There's a reason sports break classes by weight and not height. Add to this the fact he was a top finisher in several strength classes amongst his peers at combine. Then add being considered such a high pick despite basically not playing for the season. It really is beyond ridiculous how little of a role height will play in his success.

The argument isn't that you can't be 6'0 and be outstanding. Hell, the best defenseman in the league right now is 6'0 and Doughty is also 6'0. It's just a rare breed, that's all anyone was ever saying, I can't believe we are still discussing this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrisx101

Being freakishly tall also hinders your ability is some instances as well. How many NHL D are 6'5" and above? Granted there are much less in the total population, but that does not negate the numerous instances in which height was a hinderance (stability, skating, agility) rather than a benefit.

You answered your own question right here. Furthermore, the "freakishly" tall ones play basketball so there's that too.

78% of all NBA players are African American. Does this tell me that the advantages of skin colour far outweigh the negatives?

Your dancing around the facts with random references and if you want to use any stat out of the NBA use height...Height is one of the characteristics that is looked at upon evaluating a prospect. So is natural build, so is skating ability, so is vision, so is release, ect. Sure you can work on those to make them better, but some people are just born with an advantage in those departments. Scouts look for height in a prospect just as they look for those other traits. It's not an end all benchmark for how a prospect will do, but it sure looks like teams look for the trait of being vertically blessed in their defensemen more often than not.

If you notice they keep referencing each prospect's height in the description, almost as if it means something. You can argue all you want that height doesn't contribute to how a player is evaluated in his total package. It is in fact a variable and it is a variable that is looked upon in a positive light.

78% of all NBA players are African American. Does this tell me that the advantages of skin colour far outweigh the negatives?

Yes, being of West African descent is an advantage to play in the NBA. Just like it's an advantage in sprinting (72 of 76 men to break 10 second barrier are of West African descent) and an advantage to play halfback or cornerback (literally all black, hasn't been a white one in years) in the NFL. It's mainly genetics (and a little bit of culture).

This argument is absurd, I thought everybody knew height was an advantage for NHL defensemen. Guess not.

Um, I didn't say height was the deciding factor. I merely refuted a claim that height doesn't matter for an NHL defensemen. It must be of some importance if 74% of NHL defensemen come from a group that represents 16% of the male population. Height is a good tiebreaker when the ability/skill is the same. If you are more normal in size, you have to be more exceptional in ability/skill to separate yourself from the pack. Hall Gill is a terrible skater with stone hands and mediocre at best vision, but he is really tall. Had a nice long career with the skills he had to work with. Can you name any short defenders with his skillset that had any sort of longevity?

Care to use any facts/stats that Whydidijoin used that back-up that height doesn't matter?

And just for the record (again). I don't think Reilly's height will effect him at all. When your skating is that good, it makes up for any of the length/reach that a lankier skater has.

If your conclusion is that height CAN be an advantage, then I agree with you and I don't understand how anyone couldn't agree with that. But the problem that I have with your statistical analysis is that you are assuming that since a certain height that came from 84% of the population represents 26% of hockey defencemen, and 76% of defencemen of taller height came from 16%, then thus height is an advantage. The problem I have with this is that you don't know the representive proportions of the population of each height that contributes to the total sample of defencemen. Hence you're making a large degree of commitment to your conclusion. Like I said, if your claim is that height CAN be an advantage for a defencemen, I don't see how anyone can refute that at all, it's common sense.

Put it this way, I just quickly used this site http://www.hockeynut.com/0607/round1.html to check defenseman drafted since 2006 (any earlier than that and they don't show the heights and I'm about to go to bed so you can expand further on your own if you like).

Really 1 star player in this list, or 13% of those drafted in the first round. Again, usually small players aren't drafted as highly as tall players so obviously it's not the exact same with Rielly, I'm just speaking in general, it's harder for 6'0 small defenseman to make it.

Of those, there's at least 5 star defenseman, and then there's still some up for debate like Schenn, Myers, Gardiner, Sbisa, Alzner, Carlson. At a bare minimum, 25% of those drafted turned out to be stars. If you add guys like those I spelled out for you it's jumping up to a crazy high proportion.

Again, no one is saying Rielly can't do it, it's just statistically harder for short defenseman to make it in the NHL as top guys (or even regulars).